Introduction

Vera Valentina Benrós de Melo Duarte Lobo de Pina, best known as Vera Duarte, was born in 1952 in Mindelo, island of São Vicente, Cabo Verde. She earned a law degree from the University of Lisbon prior to returning to Cabo Verde as a judge in the Supreme Court of Justice as well as a counselor to the president of the republic. She was a 1995 recipient of the North–South Prize of the European Council in recognition of her defense of human rights as a judge, having also been a member of the African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights.

In the sphere of literary production, she has written and published works across genres including poetry, novel, short stories, and essays. She is best known and celebrated as a poet, with her earliest works appearing in Portuguese and in translation in anthologies such as Across the Atlantic: An Anthology of Cape Verdean Literature edited by Maria M. Ellen (1988). In 1993, she released her own collection of poetry, Amanhã amadrugada (Tomorrow Dawned), followed by Arquipélago da paixão (Archipelago of Passion, 2001), before publishing her first novel, A candidata (The Female Candidate, 2003). She returned to poetry with the 2005 publication of Preces e súplicas ou os cânticos da desesperança (Prayers and Supplications, or the Songs of Hopelessness), followed by a collection written in French and Spanish, with Portuguese translation—Ejercicios poéticos / Exercícios poéticos (Poetic Exercises, 2010).

She published her first book of crónicas, A palavra e os dias (The Word and the Days) in 2013, in Brazil, before releasing her first collection of short stories, A matriarca: estórias de mestiçagens (The Matriarch: Stories of Miscegenations, 2017). Her most recent publications are two collections of poetry published in 2018, De risos e lágrimas (Of Laughs and Tears) followed by Reinvenção do mar (Reinvention of the Sea). Beyond her own books, prolifically published over the last two decades, cementing her as one of Cabo Verde's premier literary voices, her work has appeared in notable anthologies such as Mirabilis de veias ao sol (Mirabilis with Veins Toward the Sun, 1998), Antologia da poesia feminina dos PALOP (Anthology of Women's Poetry from Lusophone Africa, 1998), Poesia africana de língua portuguesa (African Poetry in Portuguese, 2003), Na Liberdade (In Liberty, 2004), and Destino de Bai: Antologia de poesia inédita caboverdiana (Bai's Destiny: Anthology of Unreleased Cape Verdean Poetry, 2008).